Detonable

Its really bizarre to think Germany would have lasted long against the Soviet Union. Once the Soviet Navy developed nuclear attack subs, the ability to receive imports would have been similar to WWI and II. Its not like the German Navy would dominate the Atlantic. I think if Stalin knew that only Britain stood in his way of conquering the whole continent, he would have taken it. Certainly all of Germany, at least. As we've seen from figures posted by Rich, I believe, the Russian Army and associates had 6 million men in 1945. That's hardly weak, considering how well equipped they were. The artillery and tank production was astounding.

I think the point is that Georgia is a democracy, which Russia has been trying to eliminate. Its not support for their poor choice of a president, but for the country to remain a democracy. It remains to be seen if they got off with a warning or not.

The bad news for Georgia on the ethnic map is that Ossetians are also in the south, and it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to cut the country in two...

No, you just don't get it. Many French speaking citizens of eastern Canada are not happy and would like to secede. If France armed them and funded them, and they started shelling English speaking towns, while French troops were stationed in Quebec, eventually the Canadian government would organize some sort of response. That doesn't make the elected Canadian Government the "aggressor".

Uh, it generally seems clear that there was sniping and shelling of Georgian villages, and that the Georgians moved against the SO forces. Subsequently, both sides made false claims. Perhaps this is not the first war in which that has happened? An interesting article in the Washington Post mentions that the Georgian troops behaved poorly towards SO populace (and others) several years ago. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...id=opinionsbox1 Another interesting viewpoint: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...8081303359.html

So the only course of action was a treaty with Great Britain. Either get rid of the fleet, and Britain guarantees your imports and exports, or ally with Britain. They failed to do either.

Did the Germans truly believe that the Schlieffen Plan would work? I.E., wouldn't they expect some resistance sweeping by Paris, for example? What was their fallback plan if it didn't work? We've seen, after all, that the French Army wasn't a small one. Were the Germans massively overconfident after 1877? How much were the modifications by Moltke at fault?

We've already seen that Germany did not increase their army as much as they could have in the years prior to the war. So its unlikely they were planning to become the dominating power in Europe through a war. Also, they would become the dominant economic power in Europe as long as there was no war, as long as trade was possible, and tariffs were low. War exposed their industrial region to French attack, so it wasn't a benefit for them. Since they had no guarantee of trade from the British, war could be beneficial if they could defeat Britain. Then, perhaps, trade would be in their own hands, and could be guaranteed. But the Navy they had in 1914 wasn't suffucient to defeat the French, Russian, and British navies simultaneously. So, at that time, war was not beneficial. The French probably wanted a war, due to their dislike of being supplanted as the dominant continental power combined with the loss of Alsace and Lorrain. Although they had a lot to lose, they had a lot to gain, too. The British don't have any particular reason to avoid war. The war was expected to be short and casualties low. They couldn't possibly lose any territory to Austria and Germany. The threatening German fleet would likely be destroyed. The most probable outcome of war would be that the naval race would be ended. The Russians couldn't be depended on to guarantee peace in the long term, since there was naturally going to be some friction between them and the neighboring empires. An additional German problem was their treaty with Italy. It required Italian assistance in case of attack. But, German plans were to initiate hostilities as soon as the Russians mobilized, to take advantage of the long time between Russian mobilization and the time the Russian army could arrive at the border. So, the treaty as written was badly flawed. So, the Germans needed to depend on avoiding war by involving the British, who had little interest in helping them. Perhaps the German fleet should have been a bargaining chip. It could have been capped near the size of the French and Russian fleets, and subordinated to the British fleet somehow. In any case, their prewar diplomacy and preparations were defective. If war with Britain, France, and Russia was likely they should have raised a larger army, considering what they had to lose.

He's not arguing with men, he's arguing with the emotional equivalent of two year olds. The men, and occasionally women, bring new information and perspectives to the topics, as Glenn has repeatedly. I would have loved to hear more from others, especially what was being discussed in the British government immediately before the war. Instead I have to wade through posts such as yours, and worse. MODERATOR I've been on this forum since the Heavy Metal days. Until recently both sites were informative and interesting, and I used to spend way too much time every day on them. Now if I miss a few days its not a big loss. It changed by the time of the "8-inch gun" topic. Now anything that conflicts with the world view of a few on the forum invites immediate and repeated personal attacks. If you use the ignore button on a couple of the nastiest individuals its easy to have to scroll down half a page until you come to the first post! I've enjoyed Glenn's posts, although I haven't agreed with some of his contentions. Its been nice to have some new blood in the forum. He shouldn't have had to point out the large percentage of personal attacks. Its not like this is the first topic where this has happened. You can go from one thread to another and see the same, nasty, insults. People shouldn't have to try to keep the topic on track in the middle of a flame war. It wasn't that long ago that someone posted that OTHER forums seemed to develop into flame wars but ours didn't, because we had professionals at this grate site. What happened? Did the moderators get old and get sent to the Lee I. Charters assisted living facility? It can't be that hard to check for "cheap shot", "pompous", "bullshit", "If you were half as clever as you think you are", "sophomoric", or "lack the wit" with the Find on this page function. If you use the ignore button on two or three people you still get all the useful information in this topic, but why should we have to do that? Why can't you just remove those who repeatedly insult everyone else? The topic would develop much better if posters were responding to alternate viewpoints, instead of spending time responding to personal attacks.

When I went to school in England in the 1960s, our history book said that Britain needed to have trade with other countries because it was short of raw materials. So, from a British perspective, losing control of the sea was a threat to their existence.

Didn't the Sherman have a belly hatch?

Double post again

If he achieves a "timetable" for the Americans to leave, the necessity to drive out the "occupiers" by force, as Sadr claims to want to do, goes away.

Uh, is the truth the fact that the leader of Iraq decided to take control of the city, and did so; or not?

The Monroe doctrine was what caused the war, which didn't quite take place. This was discussed by an article in the US Navy Proceedings journal about 10 years ago (roughly). A South American country had large debts with Germany and England, which it couldn't possibly repay. Germany and England prepared a naval expedition to sail to the country. Under the Monroe doctrine, the US did not allow foreign military intervention in the Americas. Admiral Dewey, the hero of Manila Bay (Spanish-American war) was the admiral in charge of the Atlantic fleet. It was due for annual gunnery exercises. He ordered full ammo loads for the exercise in case war erupted. England and Germany changed their approach. So, the date was between the Spanish-American war and WWI.

I saw a picture once of "ocean-going monitors" that were sent on some sort of cruise to a foreign country. They had two turrets, one fore and one aft.

You were probably fortunate not to have the Ukranian experience. Its not realistic to compare Polish combat deaths against Germany, to combat deaths versus the Russians. Most of the combat was against the Germans, since the Soviets invaded later. Had the Soviets invaded first, with Germany entering the war near the end, results would be different. In terms of civilian deaths, the Poles were a victimized nation, due to expulsions and massacres. Yes, they did bite off parts of other countries before the war, but they didn't slaughter 20% of the inhabitants of those parts.

The military aren't supposed to advise how to win a war, they're supposed to do it. Where was their alternate plan? Or that of the State Department? In some cases, such as not having enough troops, that wasn't their fault. But, I think the problems of the occupation were a lot larger than merely a lack of troops. Is it not possible that the leaders such as Feith, Rumsfeld, and Powell are being blamed not only for their own incompetance, but also for incompetance from top to bottom in their organizations? Isn't that a little unfair? Shouldn't career professionals in both organizations have performed much better?

There are 3 armed groups in Iraq outside of the government (Maliki) controlled army. 1. Al-Qaeda. Considerably damaged by Awakening Councils, US. 2. Mahdi Army groups of various loyalty to al-Sadr. 3. Awakening Council #1 has been considerably depleted. #3 won't be a problem in the October elections, since Maliki wasn't likely to get huge numbers of Sunni votes anyway. #2 is a problem. Apparently they have been preventing candidates from Maliki's party from running in areas they hold. Also, they tapped into the oil production and used it to finance themselves. Their thuggish nature may not have endeared them to many residents, similar to the way Al-Qaeda wore out their welcome in many Sunni areas. (Apparently some mass graves were uncovered near one Mahdi Army post, but I'm not clear about the truth of this claim). Maliki would like to gradually push many of them out. He'll probably keep squeezing until October. Obviously, he felt strong enough to start now. He doesn't need a blitzkrieg - its more like an anaconda squeezing a wild pig until its beady eyes bug out. Squeezing the Mahdi Army is probably popular with #3.

Very interesting post! You could only drive the Tiger for an hour before it overheated. The new Lt seemed like a jerk. I wonder if anyone recognizes the type.

Double post

Was the Tiger I as unreliable as the Panther? It was built around the same time. I've heard that the Tiger Is needed to stop frequently for maintenance. What were they maintaining? Track tension?

Well, the Tiger I design was started before the Germans had much experience with the T-34, so it had the standard German boxy design. The Panther had a gun with better penetration than the Tiger I so it was their "sloped-armor E-50". Since the Germans knew before production started that the Panther armor would be thicker, it seems inexcusable to persist with an inadequate final drive. It might not be possible to design any Tiger with "maximum production in mind". The armor was just so thick. Was the Tiger I unusually complicated, or was it just very difficult to build such a heavy machine? The Soviets did not build a huge number of heavy tanks, and they were the masters of fast and simple tank production. I wonder what happened to the clown that designed the final drive for the Panther? At first, you'd keep him around to fix the problem, but after a while, when the magnitude of the disaster becomes clear, wouldn't you pick someone else? Perhaps you could send him to visit maintenance shops at the Russian front? And maybe never bring him back? They always tell us who designed the first jet plane, rocket, etc., but what about the folks who really, really screwed up? Seems like they'd be good trivia questions.

A group of Cuban-Americans opposed to Castro repeatedly violated Cuban airspace with small planes, perhaps a decade ago. Eventually, they were shot down, with a number of fatalities. Didn't get a whole lot of sympathy in the US, even though as the US dislikes Castro. Haven't heard of any flights since... I imagine some poor Egyptian bastard came closer to the ship, despite the warnings, simply out of the need/desire to make some good money. I imagine somebody on the ship determined he could be replaying the Cole incident and acted appropriately.

The problem the Germans had was that the T-34 was so good that it made their production plans obsolete. MK II, MK III and Czech designs are instantly obsolete. The MK III was their main tank. Also, the infantry 37mm and 50mm guns were also obsolete. So, basically their whole tank and anti-tank production program was screwed. The Soviets had the T-34 in production in 1941, and also had good 75mm anti-tank guns the Germans captured and modified to fire their own ammunition. They were just on another level than the Germans. The poor quality of the Panther's final drive really delayed the mass production of this weapon. Its not clear why it was so poorly designed. Although Hitler increased the frontal armor thickness of the Panther, the MK IIIs and MK IVs had also greatly increased their armor thickness throughout their history, and didn't continuously break down. A properly designed Panther could have been built in first the MK III factories not putting out StuG-IIIs, and then in the MK IV factories as well, simplifying production by replacing two tanks with one.